"I shall need a secretary," he said slowly.
"Take me," he begged. "I have been in a newspaper office. I am slow at shorthand but I can type like lightning. I will work morning and night. I want nothing but a little food if I may go about with you and hear you speak. Oh, take me!"
"You are engaged," he declared. "Go out and hire a typewriter and bring it here in a cab. You can start at once, I hope?"
"This minute," Aaron agreed, his voice breaking with excitement.
Maraton passed him money and took them both to the door.
"Tell me about to-night?" Julia asked. "Will you go to the Clarion? Shall you speak?"
"No. I have written to the men whom I am anxious to meet here, and asked them to come to me. I should prefer not to speak at all until I go to Manchester. I have plans, but I must not speak of them for the moment."
"I had hoped so to hear you speak to-night," she murmured, and her face fell.
They stood together at the door and looked out across the green tree-tops towards the city.
"The time has gone by for speeches," he said quietly. "Perhaps before very long you may hear greater things than words."
They hurried off--Julia to the factory, Aaron to a typewriting depot in New Oxford Street. At the corner of the Square they parted.
"Satisfied! Julia, you told me nothing! He is wonderful--splendid!"
She climbed on to a 'bus with a little smile upon her lips. The long day's work before her seemed like a holiday task. Then she laughed softly as she found herself repeating her brother's fervid words:
Maraton spent three hours and a half that morning in conclave with the committee appointed for his reception, and for that three hours and a half he was profoundly bored. Every one had a good deal to say except Richard Graveling, who sat at the end of the table with folded arms and a scowl upon his face. The only other man who scarcely opened his lips during the entire time, was Maraton himself. Peter Dale, Labour Member for Newcastle, was the first to make a direct appeal. He was a stalwart, grim-looking man, with heavy grey eyebrows and grey beard. He had been a Member of Parliament for some years and was looked upon as the practical leader of his party.
"We've heard a lot of you, Mr. Maraton," he declared, "of your fine fighting methods and of your gift of speech. We'll hear more of that, I hope, at Manchester. We are, so to speak, strangers as yet, but there's one thing I will say for you, and that is that you're a good listener. You've heard all that we've got to say and you've scarcely made a remark. You won't object to my saying that we're expecting something from you in the way of initiative, not to say leadership?"